When Brooke Markley was nominated to participate in our Compliance Professional Spotlight campaign, we knew immediately that she was going to be our next Compliance Champion.

With her extensive experience as an agricultural economist and policy analyst, Brooke has spent her entire career helping others grow their agricultural businesses. In her role as the Trade Compliance Manager at Leprino Foods, Brooke helped revolutionize her company’s processes with respect to compliance and accuracy. As the first person to fill this new position at Leprino, Brooke has gone above and beyond. Not only has she defined the role and navigated the difficulties of being the first with grace, she’s created policies to fit Leprino’s unique compliance requirements associated with the cheese and dairy nutrition products that Leprino Foods exports to more than 40 countries across the globe.

Duty Drawback represents one of Customs’ most long-standing benefits to firms, as it offers companies a refund of up to 99% of taxes, duties and fees paid when imported merchandise is exported or destroyed within certain timeframes. The concept is simple – match your import entry documents with the corresponding export docs, file for expedited payment processing, and voila! Money will flow into your bank account.

As simple as it seems, drawback regulations are among the most complicated, and it is estimated that $2.8 billion dollars is left unclaimed by companies eligible for refund. Enter Amber Road’s Global Trade Academy – after attending the unique 3-day Duty Drawback Certificate Program, attendees have succeeded in securing incredible refunds for their firms.

One great success story is that of Tammy Anderson, Logistics Supervisor with an electronics firm, who in less than one year was able to secure $1.3 million dollars from her drawback program.

The world relies on commerce. Given the current global trade environment and the ongoing shifts in trade policies around the world, customs management is as important as ever. In its 2016 Import Benchmark Report, American Shipper magazine reports that customs self-filing is a growing trend in the industry. Tools and systems are readily available, providing the shipper with choices in how they file the required information with customs agencies. Working with third party logistics providers may make sense for some organizations, but leveraging software to file data directly with customs provides added value to many companies.